A turbomachine, such as, for example, a single-shaft turbomachine, has a rotor with a shaft. What may be considered for mounting the shaft is, inter alia, a tilting pad radial bearing in which the shaft can rotate about its axis. The tilting pad radial bearing generally has three or four tilting pads, a distinction being made between lower and upper tilting pads. The lower tilting pads bear the weight of the shaft, whereas the upper tilting pads prevent the shaft from lifting off in the event of a fault. The tilting pads are arranged in a support ring which is inserted into a bearing housing. The weight is dissipated via the lower tilting pads, the support ring and the bearing housing into a base. It is necessary for the operation of the machine that the shaft axis and the machine axis are superimposed.
In order to align the shaft, the outer side of the lower tilting pads is made of a soft material such that the material can deform plastically under the effect of the weight, whereby the shaft axis can automatically be matched to the machine axis. Furthermore, packings comprising thin metal sheets are provided as aligning elements between the support ring and the tilting pad allowing the two axes to be matched by a shrinking of their packings. Manual alignment of the shaft axis with the machine axis is possible only by completely dismantling the tilting pad radial bearing, which is very laborious.